“The joke is on you, old chap; you don’t feel any of those symptoms you have complained of all these years. Why? Well, because you haven’t anybody and haven’t anything to feel with. Mind is all there is to you and—and—and I’m afraid there is not enough of it to give you much trouble.”
I liked Christian Science pretty well, although the name seemed to me somewhat of a misnomer. The main part of it consisted in trying to make me believe that nothing is or ever was. Just a great big, overgrown imagination. However, I cannot refrain from perpetrating that old gag about their taking real money for what they did for me.
I soon dropped science and was treated by hypnotic suggestion. I would seat myself in an easy-chair midst seductive surroundings and the great metaphysician would then say: “Put your objective senses in abeyance with complete mental oblivion, and enter a state of profound passivity.” This interpreted into plain United States would mean: “Forget your troubles and go to sleep.” When I was in a suggestible mood the doctor would address a little speech to what he called my subconscious mind, after which he sent me on my way rejoicing. About this time a friend advised me to consult a vibrationist, which I did.
This man told me that the trouble in my case was in my polarization; not enough positive for the negative elements. However, he assured me that I could be cured by sleeping with my head to the northwest and wearing his insulated soles inside my shoes. I postponed taking this treatment until after I had heard from an astrologist to whom I had written. The latter agreed to tell me all I cared to know about myself and my ailments, which he would deduce from the date of my birth. His graphic description of the diseases to which I was liable gave me a favorable impression of his astute wisdom. So I wrote to about a dozen other astrologists for horoscopes of my life in order to see whether all their findings were the same. Some of them tallied almost verbatim with the first one received, while others were diametrically opposite. From this I inferred that these star-gazers gained their information in at least two ways: from their imaginations and from a book.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CULTIVATION OF A FEW VICES AND THE CONSEQUENCES.
When I found that I couldn’t possibly do nothing—I do not mean this in the ungrammatical sense in which it is so often used—I thought I would be obliged to take up some new calling or diversion. Time hung heavily on my hands and I thought too much about myself, as usual. A mental healer had told me that I was too imaginative and thought of too many different things. He said: “A part of the time try to think of absolutely nothing; think of yourself.” I did not know whether he meant this literally or as a bit of sarcasm. Anyway, I realized that it was best for me to keep the ego in subjection so far as possible. But to what new things could I now turn in order to divert my mind from myself and my ailments?
I had always led a life very exemplary and free from even the petty vices usually indulged in by the best of men. I had never engaged in the little pleasantries and frivolities that might be of questioned propriety. I would often remark that I had never had a cigar between my teeth, never had uttered a cuss word, never kissed a girl, and so on. For this my friends would sometimes twit me and say: “Old boy, you don’t know what you’ve missed!” Another quotation rung in my ears was: “Be good and you’ll be happy, but you’ll miss a lot of fun!” So I thought I would pursue a different course for a while. It was an awful thing to do, but I was set upon putting it to the test: I would cultivate a few delicate vices.